Winner at a losing game

I am a big Rascal Flatts fan, and that doesn’t make me a bad person, with one of my favourite tracks being ‘Winner at a losing game’. Those lyrics struck me as quite appropriate this week when I was listening to someone talking. Their premise was that the world is unfair.

Their challenge was that well maybe what we see as unfair is simply the result of people taking the time and trouble to invest the effort into creating something worthwhile, something that just works over and over again. I have had the privilege to work with people like that, people who create an advantage by simply being really good at what they do, people who work at being good at what they do.

And here’s the thing, they never see the world as unfair. Come to think about it, they never even consider that they might lose, even if what they are doing isn’t quite as good, might even be wrong. All they are focused on is their way of doing things, their design, their ideas, their processes, and because they believe in what they are doing then they just focus on winning.

Actually they also tend to create a story, build a narrative that is not based on being really clever or super technical, but simply one that resonates with our core desires, our needs and that resonance, that commonality creates a sense of togetherness, a sense of belonging. And together they changed the course of their world onto a direction of their making.

My point is this, for instance for a technology company like ours but across a theme which applies to all companies, if all we are focused on is being clever and then we will end up as winners at a losing game.

In order to win the game that matters, companies always have ensure that they “do what it says on the tin”, as well as find that storyline that resonates with customer needs and build a real sense of team around everything they do.